Description

‘A beautiful book’ Ursula K. Le Guin

This mordantly funny and provocative tale from Soviet Russia’s leading science fiction writers is the story of astrophysicist Dmitri Malianov. As he reaches a major breakthrough, he finds himself plagued by interruptions, from a mysterious crate of vodka to a glamorous woman on his doorstep. Is the Universe trying to tell him something?

‘On putting down one of their books, you feel a cold breeze still lifting the hairs on the back of your neck’ The New York Times

Publisher Review

They open windows in the mind and then fail to close them all, so that, putting down one of their books, you feel a cold breeze still lifting the hairs on the back of your neck. * The New York Times * One of the best and most provocative novels I have ever read, in or out of sci-fi -- Theodore Sturgeon One of the Strugatsky brothers is descended from Gogol and the other from Chekhov, but nobody is sure which is which ... A beautiful book -- Ursula K. Le Guin